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English has active and passive voices. The active voice tells you what the subject of a sentence does. The passive voice creates a new subject. The active voice is more common than the passive. Using the passive voice changes the focus of your sentence. You can use a passive when you want to emphasise the action itself, when the reader does not need to know who did an action, or when you do not want to emphasise who did an action (as long as you leave out the word by and the name, e.g. by Ching).

Only transitive verbs (verbs which take a direct object) can be made passive. (Examples of transitive verbs are break, buy, make.) Intransitive verbs do not take an object and cannot be made passive. (Examples of intransitive verbs are cry, laugh, go.)

If you are not sure if a verb is transitive or intransitive in English, try putting an object after it.

Transitive:

Question: What did Robin start? Answer: The group project. Therefore ‘started’ is transitive.

This can refer to the fact that the essay had been thought about carefully, or to the action that the student did when writing the essay. If you want to tell if a past participle is being used in a passive construction or as an adjective, see if you need to add the words by and a noun, or whether you can substitute an adjective for the past participle.

e.g. The essay was thoroughly researched by Anna.

This emphasises the action (research) and adds a person who did the action (Anna).

e.g. The essay was thoroughly researched. Well done!

This emphasises the fact that the essay was well researched. You could replace the past participle with an adjective:

e.g. The essay was excellent. Well done!

If you are using a passive construction, you should use a past participle:

I was bored by the speech.

– Passive

The speech bored me.

– Active

I was interested by what you said.

– Passive

What you said interested me.

– Active

If you are using an active construction, you can use a present participle:

e.g. I am boring (= people find me boring; I talk for a long time about things that are not interesting).

Boring is a present participle used as an adjective.

I am interesting (= people find me interesting; they like what I say).

Sentence 3 uses an ergative verb. An ergative verb can change an object into a subject without needing to use a passive. This is sometimes called the 'middle voice'.

Why do I need to use ergative verbs?

Using ergative verbs will make you sound more like a native speaker of English. For example, native speakers do not say: The figures were decreased; they say: The figures decreased. Decreased is an ergative verb. To check if a verb can be used in this way, look at the ergative verbs list.

Ergative verbs are a step further on from the active and the passive.

1) Robin started the group project. – ActiveThe emphasis is on Robin as the person responsible for starting the group project.

2) The group project was started by Robin. – PassiveThe emphasis is on the group project and on the fact that someone started it, rather than on the person who started it. We could even remove the name and say: The group project was started.That would emphasise the action and the final result without naming the person who started it.

3) The group project started. – Ergative verbThe emphasis is entirely on the action. We do not know who is responsible. It is as though the project started all by itself. In some languages you could indicate this with a reflexive verb. In other languages the sentence would not be possible. In English it is possible because of the ergative verb start.

There are two other verbs which are associated with passive-type constructions: get and have. For example, you can get/have something done, which means that someone does something for you, often at your request. This introduces a third person or thing to the action, even if you do not name them. Have is more formal than get. Get is not used much in academic writing.

There is another use of get which is not causative, because no other person is involved. e.g. The window got broken. When get and have are non-causative, they are more likely to have human subjects and are more often, though not always, used for negative effects.

e.g. She had her necklace stolen. (negative)She got knocked over by a bicycle. (negative) She got promoted last year. (positive)

The first noun/subject in a sentence in English is usually the strongest one.

e.g. Robin started the group project. – Robin is the main focus of the sentence.The group project was started by Robin. – The group project is the main focus of the sentence. The group project started. – The group project is the main focus of the sentence. Robin had the group project edited by Ching. – Robin is the main focus of the sentence.

Some people say that the passive should be avoided as much as possible, because it makes a person’s writing less clear and less interesting. However, there are many situations (as in the passive should be avoided) where the passive is useful. In academic writing, scientists use the passive voice more than writers in the humanities, arts or social sciences.

The more involved you are with the action, the more likely you are to use the active voice.

e.g. I picked that flower.NOT That flower was picked by me.

You would only use the passive here if you were answering a question such as Who was that flower picked by? Even that question is unusual, and it is more likely that someone would ask Who picked that flower? and you would answer I did or I picked that flower.

If the action has a serious effect on the person, we would also use the active:

e.g. She contracted measles and became blind in 1888.NOT Measles was contracted by her and she became blind in 1888.

Stative verbs also do not usually appear in the passive:

e.g. You weigh 60 kilos.

We like chocolate.

They understand English perfectly.

(Visit the Perfect English Grammar website for a comprehensive list of stative verbs and explanations about how to use them.)

We do not need to add by the researchers, because we assume that the people conducting the experiment and writing about it were the ones who heated the mixture in a test-tube.

We need to include the agent more often if it is important to know that information.

e.g. She was knocked over by a bicycle. (not by a car, skateboard or motorbike)

The Moonlight Sonata was composed by Beethoven.

If we just say

The Moonlight Sonata was composed.

the sentence feels incomplete because music is always composed, so we do not need to say this. We could add a date:

The Moonlight Sonata was composed in 1801.

In this case, if we leave out the name of the composer, we are assuming that everyone has heard of the Moonlight Sonata, and either they know it was written by Beethoven or they don’t need to know who the composer was.

Compare:(a) As the graph shows, there was a fall in temperature.(b) As shown by the graph, there was a fall in temperature.

Sentence a is active. Sentence b is passive, with the graph as the agent. (You can tell because it follows the word by.)

(c) Anna showed this fall in temperature in a graph.(d) This fall in temperature was shown in a graph (by Anna).

Sentence c is active. It shows us who (Anna) did (showed) what (this fall in temperature) where (in a graph).

Sentence d is passive. It emphasises what (this fall in temperature) happened (was shown) where (in a graph). We may not need to know who did the action, but if we want to know we can add the agent (by Anna).

(e) As shown in the graph, there was a fall in temperature.

Sentence e just tells us that there is a graph and it shows us something (there was a fall in temperature).

This use of as is called a ‘linking as-clause’. It is still a passive construction, but we do not see all the words and we cannot tell who put the information into the graph:

(f) As (it is) shown in the graph, there was a fall in temperature.

The sentence is therefore a shortened relative clause (see below). We could rewrite it:

(g) There was a fall in temperature, which was shown in the graph.

We could also say:

(h) As is shown in the graph, there was a fall in temperature.

Learners of English often want to include it is and add the word that:

(i) * As it is shown in the graph that there was a fall in temperature.

This is not correct. First, just like sentence e, as here is not the same as because. This means that the sentence is incomplete.

In some places, however, as does equal because:

(j) As it was raining, I took an umbrella.

This is the same as:

(k) Because it was raining, I took an umbrella.

It in sentences g and h does not refer to any other noun in the sentence. In these sentences it is called a ‘dummy subject’.

How do you know if as means because? If as is used to indicate a reason, there should be two parts (clauses) to your sentence, each containing a subject and verb:

You could also rewrite the sentence using therefore:

It was raining; therefore I took an umbrella.

Now compare:

(l) Because it has been widely circulated, the idea may be important.(m) As it has been widely circulated, the idea may be important.

Sentences i and j say the same thing:

(n) The idea may be important because many people have circulated the idea.

In sentences i and j the word it refers to the idea.

If we use as in the meaning of because, we can rewrite sentence f to make it a complete sentence:

(o) As it is shown in the graph that there was a fall in temperature, we need to regulate the air conditioning.

However, if we just want to say that there is a graph and it shows us something, then we do not use it or that. Here are some more examples:

(p) As indicated in Figure 1, the passive is used differently in other languages.(q) As revealed earlier, ergative verbs are very useful when writing English.

You can also put the as-clause second:

(r) There was a change in grades, as can be seen in the chart.(s) The sea levels are rising, as demonstrated by recent data.

Linguists often divide verbs into unaccusative and unergative. Ergative verbs are sometimes called ‘unaccusative’ verbs. There is debate over whether they are identical to unaccusatives (e.g. Newson et al., 2007), but many linguists see them as the same. However, purely intransitive verbs cannot be ergative, because ergative verbs are between transitive and intransitive.

In practice, unaccusatives and unergatives are divided like this:

Transitive features

Intransitive

a. unaccusative (with transitive features), i.e. ergative (which can be active, passive or middle, so has to be based on a transitive verb)

b. unaccusative (without transitive features)

c. unergative

The door opened.

The car disappeared.

The cat jumped.

The snow melted.

The walkers emerged.

The athletes ran.

The rules changed.

The tree vanished in the fog.

The baby sneezed.

The difference between unaccusative and unergative is that unergative verbs can add a noun afterwards: The cat jumped (a great jump out of the tree). The athletes ran (a long race). The baby sneezed (a huge sneeze).

Unaccusative verbs cannot add a noun afterwards when they are intransitive or in the middle voice. We cannot say: *The car disappeared a disappearance.

Balcom, P. A. (2010). An application of second language acquisition research to ESL grammar teaching: What to do with novel passives. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique appliquee, 4(1-2), 1-23?

Oshita, H. (2001). The unaccusative trap in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23(02), 279-304. doi: 10.1017/S0272263101002078 [Good for more information on unaccusatives]